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Princess Crown
Princess Crown (プリンセスクラウン Purinsesu Kuraun) is an action RPG developed by Atlus for the Sega Saturn. The game was published by Sega and released exclusively in Japan on December 11, 1997. The game is a cult classic due to many members of the development team eventually going on to form Vanillaware, and the game itself is Odin Sphere's spiritual predecessor. Overview As a game, Princess Crown is a side-scroller that has a medieval setting. The game features real-time combat, with the player being capable of learning certain moves or button combinations to perform special attacks. Experience points, money, and items are obtained via defeating enemies. Gameplay As Odin Sphere's spiritual predecessor, Princess Crown has a number of similarities. Like Odin Sphere, the game is a 2D sidescroller, making getting lost and losing track of one's location very difficult. Primary gameplay involves visiting towns, engaging in quests, gathering information, challenging bosses, and otherwise fighting enemies. Exploration functions in a similar manner to games like Zelda II or Castlevania II: there is town exploration and paths. Towns contain NPCs that hold information needed to progress through the game. Paths are routes that are used to move to the next town or triggering an event that typically features random encounters Enemy encounters are a cross between both regular fighting and RPG battles. The system in these fights is simple with primary mechanics being attack commands, guarding, evasion, items and recovery. Winning these battles is a matter of spacing, timing, reading, knowledge and evasion. What's most important in combat is the POWER gauge: certain attacks result in the meter being depleted and if the meter completely empties, the player will become completely out of breath and need to recharge. The POWER gauge is required in order to attack, guard, and evade. Along with the combat system, players are also capable of utilizing items to their advantage, with various items functioning as armor, health restoratives, magic items, and general throwing items. Story Princess Crown's story is framed as a series of books being read to a little girl by her grandmother. The first book (and longest story) has the player taking control of Princess Gradriel De Valendia, who travels around her kingdom with the goal of solving its problems with her own two hands. Unfortunately, she ends up encountering a great deal of trouble as a result. During her journey, Gradriel meets three major characters who subsequently become additional playable characters as more books are unlocked: Edward Glowstar is a knight attempting to avenge his father, Proserpina is a young witch who causes Gradriel ire throughout her story, and Portgas Chrisford is a Robin Hood-esque pirate who is currently dealing with another pirate engaging in unjust acts while masquerading as him. Development Princess Crown was a joint development project between Atlus and Sega. George Kamitani, the project and art director who would eventually become Vanillaware's president, served as the game's lead designer and planner. Composer Toshikazu Tanaka provided the game's original score. The Princess Crown Original Sound Collection + Full Arrange was released in April 1998 by Nippon Columbia Records, with another album simply titled Princess Crown Soundtrack released by SuperSweep Records in February 2011. The Playstation Portable version of Princess Crown was announced at the Tokyo Game Show in 2004 by Sony Computer Entertainment, with the first playable build of the game exhibited the following year at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show. The port includes the ability to choose the screen aspect ratio when when playing the game and also features a more legible font and a gallery mode with music and illustrations. As it stands, there has never been an official translated version released outside of Japan. Fan translations, however, do exist and the game is a popular import for Western Sega Saturn owners. Reception The Japanese magazine Weekly TV Gamer gave the game a 7.75 out of 10 average based on individual scores of 7, 7, and 8. In 2005, IGN called the game "one of the finest examples of 2D on the barebones Saturn system," and that it "offered an expansive quest with terrific characters and lots of gameplay." 1UP.Com heavily praised the game's graphics and character designs, commenting that "not only is the artwork detailed, the character design is simply gorgeous." They elaborated on this by saying "If you rank games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night among gaming's finest 2D royalty (and it is), it's nothing compared to the visual quality of Princess Crown." Gamespot stated that the Playstation Portable version "manages to hold up nicely" eight years after its original release and that "the gameplay is rock solid, and the visuals have a nice retro look to them that still impresses." The port, however, has received some criticism. It has been stated that the game lacks true widescreen display, with IGN commenting that the port was "lazy" and "Princess Crown on the PSP is a port of the original Saturn game in the most shameful of terms -- complete with borders around the small 320x240 gameplay window." Gamespot also said "the pseudo-letterbox presentation is a bit of a downer, but it's hard to complain since we're just pleased to be able to play the game on the go." Similarities and influences on Odin Sphere * Designs for Gwendolyn and Mercedes were influenced by the characters in Princess Crown, with Gwendolyn notably sharing some of Gradriel's design aspects. * Both games have a similar story premise as a series of books being read by a young girl. Additionally, they both take place in fantasy settings with magical creatures such as fairies and dragons. * A few items from Princess Crown appear in Odin Sphere, with the most famous being the Napple fruits. * Stages are similar in that they are traversed in a circular manner (this similarity more evident in the original Odin Sphere than in Leifthrasir.) * Gameplay in the original Odin Sphere is similar to that of Princess Crown, although it lacks some of the RPG elements that Princess Crown had. Trivia * Although Princess Crown was developed years before Vanillaware first formed, fanworks crossing over various Vanillaware games often have Princess Crown characters posing with characters from games like Odin Sphere, Oboro Muramasa, and Dragon's Crown. ** This has stemmed into official merchandise, such as the female character charms by Megahouse. * During development, Odin Sphere was referred to as "Princess Crown 2," suggesting it might have originally been intended to be a direct sequel. Similarly, Oboro Muramasa was called "Princess Crown 3." ** George Kamitani, however, has explicitly stated he considers both Princess Crown and Odin Sphere's stories to be complete and does not have plans to make a straight-forward sequel. Category:Games Category:Official Material Category:Industry